(Vegetables) Chapter Forty Six: Penguin Pile-Up

Megan was in bed asleep, snuggled up with her two bunnies.

It took the three grown-ups seventeen minutes to woman-handle the Mrs K shell out of the car and into the house.

“I don’t care,” said Rosa. “I’m not putting her in the lounge. It gives me the creeps!”

“Well, we can’t exactly put her in the cupboard under the stairs can we?” snapped Felindre.

They finally put her in Mrs K’s bedroom, on the bed. Rosa even tucked her in under the duvet.

“What?” she said, seeing the looks the other two gave her. “It’ll look like she’s having a sleep if anyone looks in.”

They all trooped downstairs. Felindre found the biscuit tin. Rosa found the tv remote control and was sharing the sofa and the biscuits with Felindre, while Morwen made tea in the kitchen.

The kettle had just come to the boil when Morwen’s phone rang, leaving her with the dilemma of which to do first - pour the water on the teabags and risk missing the call, or take the call and have the water go off the boil.

She compromised by wedging the phone under her chin to talk as she poured the hot water.

It was Richard.

“Where are you?” he asked, worriedly and quietly.

“We’re at the address the white rabbit gave us, Mrs K’s place,” said Morwen, fishing the teabags out and putting them on a saucer.

“Oh, thank God,” he said. “I’ve just been to your house, and Felindre’s flat. Both of them are being watched.”

“Are the chickens ok?” asked Morwen.

“As far as I can tell,” he said. “I didn’t get close enough to be able to see into the back garden. But the girls are tough, they can look after themselves.”

“Who’s watching us then? Mrs K and the grocers have had their evil plan foiled. I don’t think we’ve annoyed anyone else recently…”

“Rabbits, multi-coloured and otherwise. Some of them still with the water machine guns. They’re not doing anything, just waiting.”

“That’s not good,” said Morwen. “I thought we’d paid them off. I wonder what it is they want?”

“Who knows,” said Richard. “It’s probably sensible not to go home for the moment though, until we find out what they want. I’ll come to you.”

“That’d be nice,” said Morwen, taking a mouthful of tea. “You can explain why the Agency didn’t swoop in to the rescue when we were trapped by the grocers in a badly watered giant carnivorous plant.”

“Sorry,” said Richard. “We were on our way, but some idiot decided to steal a flock of penguins from the zoo, and then crashed on the motorway. Traffic was at a standstill. We had to spend hours chasing penguins along the hard shoulder before the traffic could get going again.”

“I can see the headlines now: ‘Top Secret Agency Fails to Foil Evil Genius because of Escaped Penguins!’ Though there should be more alliteration in there.”

“It’s a good thing that you were able to sort it out while you were there, isn’t it?”

“That’s us, happy to help. No damsels in distress here,” replied Morwen. “Though it was handy when the chickens swooped in – literally.”

“So it worked then?” asked Richard. “I wasn’t sure. Chicken hutches aren’t naturally aerodynamic.”

“Neither are chickens,” said Morwen. “But whatever you did to it, it flew. And good thing too. Things were looking pretty bleak before the girls showed up.”

The two of them wittered on about stuff for seventeen minutes longer, before making plans to meet up the following morning, and saying goodnight.

Morwen was just loading the teacups onto a tray when a squeak came from Rosa in the living room, followed by a thud. Morwen abandoned the tea and the tray on the counter and ran into the other room, to see one of Felindre’s hairsticks quivering, point down in the carpet.

“Missed it,” said Felindre, grimly. “It was that overly shiny spider that Barbra Allen had.”

Rosa was clutching a cushion in front of her, with her feet drawn up onto the sofa.

“What was it doing here?” she asked.

The doorbell rang at that exact moment, saving everyone the need to answer.